Question AIO or Air Cooler - - silent cooler for Ryzen 7800X3D ?

[kisserik93]

Hello!

I am interested in your opinions and experiences.
I'm building a new PC at the end of the month, which will have a Ryzen 7800X3D CPU, since it will be mostly used for gaming.

The processor cooler has not been decided yet. So far I have used air cooling for all my configurations, most recently a Noctua NH-D15S cooler.
Now I planned to use AIO water cooling. What is very important to me is that the PC is as quiet as possible.
What do you think, can the water cooling pump be so quiet that it cannot be heard 30-40 cm from me on the table and I can achieve better results with it than with an air cooling?
If I replace the fans on the radiator with silent ones, can I put together a system that is quieter than air cooling?

Should I stick with air cooling or switch to AIO?

My preferred water coolers are the following:

Arctic Liquid Freezer II High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 360mm​

EK Water Blocks EK-Nucleus CR360 Lux D-RGB All In One CPU Water Cooler - Black​

Thank you very much!

 

[Crowii]

Fellow quiet build enjoyer here; I personally find that at idle the pump noise will always pierce through, but under load overall a bit quieter than air cooled.

If you're the same, then I'd say it's a priority thing: Do you mostly game/do heavy workloads, or is that a sometimes thing where it can be a little louder than water cooled under load, but be free of pump noise during all other tasks?

 

[Phaaze88]

If I replace the fans on the radiator with silent ones, can I put together a system that is quieter than air cooling?

That's an expensive target, and defeats part of the purpose of getting an AIO; a form of brute force that leaves the bulk of the cooling to the higher fluid volume an AIO contains, which can be lacking in some scenarios to the point that it narrows the edge AIOs have over air coolers.

The fans need to be strong enough at low rpm to be capable of moving air through multiple layers of varying degrees of air restrictions - case paneling(ventilation), filter, the radiator itself, and anything else that may be in the way. That's usually the most expensive ones.
It doesn't help that fan specs below 100% aren't posted; a fan's performance does not scale linearly.

Should I stick with air cooling or switch to AIO?

My preferred water coolers are the following:

Arctic Liquid Freezer II High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 360mm​

EK Water Blocks EK-Nucleus CR360 Lux D-RGB All In One CPU Water Cooler - Black​

I think you should stick with air. One less potential noise variable in the mix: a pump.